Andrew Reid

Didn't think this would work at first. Turns out it does, and then some! The 9.5K sensor in this thing has enough left over for 4.8K in 2x crop mode The Ultra HD is oversampled from this 4.8K and we have our nice looking Cinema DNG internal to SD card. Something the Micro Four Thirds cameras can't do. So it is basically a Digital Bolex at this point. Frame grab: The form factor is also perfect for these lenses being so small. It feels balanced as a Super 16mm handheld candid camera. It has one over on the Sony a1 for c-mount as well... The 2x crop is sticky, between Cine and Stills, and is remembered every time you turn it on. Whereas the Sony clear image zoom keeps getting reset when you power down or switch modes. So yeah, I think my Digital Bolex D16 itch has finally been scratched!! It's also perfect for bunny pics

You've got to applaud Nikon for designing with culture in mind and drawing on their lovely past. I just hope they can take the implementation that next step because the original Df, and the Fc don't actually feel like they look. Kinda cheap. The Fz seems like it will handle and feelthe same way with those cheap buttons and the fake leather. It is lovely to look at though. I had an Fc earlier in the year in orange, but apart from the looks, I couldn't justify keeping it vs Fuji, as the X-H2 just did so much more, as did X-T4.

Looking back it seems odd to me that Canon could establish two new systems Cinema EOS and EOS R, with the first camera in these lines being quite mundane, the 8bit C300 and the 5D Mark IV in mirrorless form, EOS R. But it actually makes perfect sense when you think about it in terms of lenses. C300 appealed to all those pros using EF lenses on their DSLRs. And EOS R appealed to all those enthusiasts and semi-pros using EF lenses on their DSLRs. When you have such a large established base of users, it's very hard to naff it up isn't it!

For ages they had the mirrorless market to themselves. Now Canon DSLRs are finally dead, the mirrorless market has a new leader https://www.eoshd.com/news/how-panasonic-and-sony-let-canon-steal-the-mirrorless-camera-lead/ Canon! I take a look at how this happened.

Possibly was a cost cutting thing, but this doesn't make the situation any better, especially given the $1899 G9 II vs $1999 full frame S5 II has not resulted in much of the cost saving being passed onto Micro Four Thirds users. It has to be different. If they need to charge $2k for a camera body then the micro Leica M style idea would do it for me because it's different. When full frame has cannibalised your purpose, you have to try harder to be unique, rather than throwing in the towel and being the same but with a smaller sensor.

My thoughts on it. I am pretty sure this is the end of Micro Four Thirds. https://www.eoshd.com/news/hannibal-lumix-why-panasonic-have-lost-the-plot-over-micro-four-thirds/

Introducing the Sony BRUM

Nino is a trained poser 🙂 The a1 aside from the price has no weakness at all and is invincible. 8K, but it doesn't sacrifice low light like you'd think it would, or introduce bad rolling shutter. 4K but not capped at 30 or 60...it's 120p. 4K 120 from a 50 megapixel full frame sensor is end game for me. I don't need higher numbers until the next end game comes out! Brilliant AF even with the Leica M thingy They fixed something big in the colour science / sensor readout and so no complaints there & that firmware update with the chunky 422 codec allows it to compete with RAW without the massive file sizes. No complaints with the excellent EVF, battery life, compact size and weight, overheating, etc. Maybe the one niggle for me is that the clear-image zoom in 4K for Super 16mm lenses doesn't 'stick' when you power cycle the camera, so takes a few extra taps to put it in Micro Four Thirds 2x crop mode for those lenses. Also perhaps it could have done with that magic eND mythical unicorn tech or a way to simulate the look of 180deg shutter somehow. Actually it does have a few other downsides but they're not dealbreakers for me: - Doesn't have anamorphic open gate - No in-camera LUT support - Firmware updates a bit thin on the ground from Sony - EVF res can drop when it is autofocusing

Yes it is about little details like that, which can add up and make a totally different impression. It is also about the big details too like what the point of it existing is. That is quite alluring and really quite rare as GM5 wasn't made for long, I find it tricky to across one on eBay at all, let alone in red, let alone for under £600. Take that crap lens off it though 😉 The trick with those Sonys is to use a gamma curve rich in tonality and contrast, along with a wide colour gamut like S.Gamut.3, and play around with the extensive settings to find something you like. This was the principal of EOSHD Pro Color. Punchy straight off card cinema on a stick, but not with Sony's colours. The wider colour gamuts really help to avoid the clipping, Bart Simpson skin tones, and other issues... Also you have to take care with the white balance, that also makes a big difference. The codec is alright. Not enough data rate or bit depth for S-LOG3 but you can get away with baked in colour profiles and a bit of S-LOG2. Just to touch on big details again, in the design of a camera... GH6 should have had that big detail called a built in ND filter and done internal ProRes the way Fuji has with LT option for reasonable file sizes. They should also have had new cinema film stock emulations in there or at least provided the LUTs already installed on the camera. The GH6 should also have had PDAF. These are major details. Then the ergonomics, buttons, tactile feel of the dials, etc. could all have been done better, they are naff. S5 II if I were planning it would have been positioned as a cheaper full frame camera to compete with EOS R8, but with the classic styling of a Fuji X series cam to draw in the photography crowd, who see Pana as more a microwave oven and camcorder provider. The S5 II is uncomfortably high specced especially for video and really crashes the GH6 and S1H party. In fact it wades in and trashes the place. The G9 II on the other hand would have been a MUCH more Leica affair with emphasis on video. Why do we need the GH6 video features twice on two almost identically specced machines at a similar price?

The thing is they are right about PDAF though aren't they? Who is going to want a GH6 now, with crap AF and $300 more than the G9 II? In the same price range as an S5 II? It's toast. They will probably have to do a GH6 II with PDAF now to keep it selling. Which begs the question, why did they bring it out last year at all, better they had waited and got a strategy together that makes sense. There is nothing about the S5 II, GH6 and G9 II that makes sense. One is too cheap, one is dead, and the other is a full frame camera with the wrong sensor in it!!

BUURANOOOO 🙂 As small as a Venetian island and almost as expensive as one. The a1 sensor is a very nice thing indeed, and some sort of end-game (until the next one) for full frame video. I do like that nifty Auto ND in the Burrito though. I wonder if it is the same thing they had on the FS5? It was a bit cheaper back then. Honestly that 10bit 422 500Mbit codec in 8K on the a1 is so good you don't need no raw.

This is the blog that got me started on my GFX 100 lens adventures. https://jonasraskphotography.com/2017/08/16/minolta-x-fujifilm/ I have tried a ton of stuff and nearly all of it is more interesting looking on GFX vs FF, but it depends how much you value clinical perfection, light fall off in the corners and corner sharpness for landscape shooting. If you value all that then best to stick with the GFX stuff or crop a bit, or put some vintage medium format glass on it. Hopefully AF is improved as that was the only thing on the GFX 100 you could consider let it down.

X2D is a bit rubbish though isn't it for the price? It doesn't have a proper shutter and doesn't even shoot video, not even 480p GFX100 original gangster (is that the phrase kids use now?) is the one to get used as that will soon be under £2.5k I was never keen on the GFX100S, it didn't do it for me. By the looks of it the GFX100 II makes a very good full frame camera as well, with all those crop modes in DCI 4K and 5.8K, plus anamorphic modes too. It is about time we finally had a Fuji full frame mirrorless cam.

As you can see here with this Sony rep and his Zeiss CZ.2 lens, shaving those precious millimetres off the camera has revolutionised the way he shoots. And that is before you even get to the main raison d'être of a 1.4kg weight saving vs VENICE 2. That 1.4kg is crucial and a game changer when you have 35kg of tripod head, rails, cages, matte box, monitors, EVF and lens attached. He must really feel the difference in his back all day long. Here is one of our most adventurous and creative shooters, Nino. As you can see the size of the BURRITO is once again a total game changer here as it allows the lovely new Cooke to move back a few cm making it necessary to break your wrist to reach it. The added advantage here is that your hand forms a lens hood, reducing that nasty flare from the single coating! And as we can see, the ENG style rig high up on the body definitely isn't unbalanced with a high centre of gravity from all the shit mounted on the top handle! Finally we have the more minimal rig here. The 2.8kg BURRITO clearly needs the 68 rods under it and a tripod head the size of a bus. Otherwise the whole thing would collapse, giving an unprofessional aura to the shoot. I think that is an absolute brick of a battery on the back which is all part of the absolute game changing form factor as a cinema camera. Have you EVER seen a rig like this before!? REVOLUTIONARY!!! Yours for only $25,000! *Or just get a Sony a1 with same sensor from cash converters

SONY BURRITO

That 20mm Lumix pancake was a gem. It isn't all about size of course, but about differentiating your toolset from the others. There's a market for all sorts if it makes sense. Shoehorning a M43 mount onto an S5 II speaks of a lack of ideas or clear differentiation. A competitor like Panasonic on 4-5% market share vs Canon at 45% needs those unique selling points. They can't just copy Canon and Sony. It all goes to show that Panasonic have completely lost sight of what made Micro Four Thirds special. It's one thing for the S5 II to be full frame with large lenses, and a body that isn't nearly as compact as the full frame cameras I've pictured above alongside! It can get away with it because insanely good value for money is on offer, and you're getting the largest possible sensor for the money and best image quality. Lacking in the charm department though. Let's take a look back through memory lane to when Panasonic was one of the most creative and differentiated manufacturers vs the boring samey DSLRs. This thing was a true one off, a thing of beauty and speaks volumes about Japanese design culture. It does not kowtoe to the Americans in the slightest bit. Once LUMIX in the US realised their customers just want to turn up in front of a client with the most "PRO" and biggest intimidating piece of kit imaginable (think RED), all that went out the window. You have to partially blame the customer. People do not value the more interesting designs in significant enough numbers, at least not in the same volume as they value BIG PRO DICK SWINGING COMPETITIONS I could think of a GAZILLION designs of camera that GH6 sensor would be more at home in and more interesting in. At least Fujifilm continue to stick to their guns and bring out systems that make sense. Hell, they even have a medium format PANCAKE! I absolutely love the design of the GFX 100 II and that thing is tiny compared to what medium format used to be or a large format cinema camera. If you're going to go DSLR size then it has to either be all out like the GFX 100 II or a Sony a1, or good value for money with sensible compromises. What I don't get with Panasonic though is a sense of culture in their products any more. The S5 body was never that well designed in the first place or satisfying to pick up. It felt like the team behind the G100 got a promotion. That thing is basically a Canon G5X knock off in the design and ergonomics department. It has no soul. You only see the abyss when you look at it. The capitulation of Micro Four Thirds as a system. When I look at the S5 II and G9 II I see a well meaning intention and to deliver to a certain price. It is by no means a bad deal, but what happened culturally at Panasonic to go from a GH1 or LC1 to a fucking G100!?

They seem to have got into the way of thinking that crop sensor = cut price version of full frame, rather than having them offer portability. The lenses are also getting too big as well! They showed all the way back in 2014 that a Micro Four Thirds sensor could go in something as small as a GM5 or LX100. Since then, it's all about capitulating to the American market which doesn't really go for small cameras. The GH1 and GH2 were typically Japanese and quirky, lovely to use. Then the American Panasonic team got involved and we got the stale GH3. As well as a new GX80 with latest gubbins and a new LX100 I'd love for Panasonic to give us their version of a Leica Q. Sony has the RX1. Panasonic with full frame camera the size of a deck of cards would be great, but their absolutely-not-a-cartel L2 partnership probably puts paid to that!

Yeah, so why buy a GH6 now? It's f***ed! It's a nice tool, but also something of a strange move unless GH7 coming with PDAF just around the corner.

I really dislike that they rehashed the S5 II body for this. It has no personality or unique appeal, and it isn't smaller than a full frame camera. Bring back the GH1 days Pana!!

https://www.newsshooter.com/2023/09/12/fujifilm-announces-gfx100-ii-large-format-mirrorless-digital-camera/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fujifilm-announces-gfx100-ii-large-format-mirrorless-digital-camera I am impressed Aggressive pricing for what it is too. Perhaps the best mirrorless camera ever made, from a technical standpoint. Also you don't need the expensive medium format glass... A lot of full frame SLR stuff adapts just fine, although still trying to find out if there are crop modes in video this time... Full frame crop mode would be handy as would S35. It has the spare res!!

Nice body design Price will be at least $10k though!

Just to get back on topic... The trend isn't limited to photo, video or filmmaking forums, it's all forums... A friend recently reminisced how he used to talk to fans of his favourite band online all the time and do meet-ups. The band's unofficial forum was a hub for this, but now it doesn't even exist. It is just people on a Facebook group now, posting pics and pressing like. This is due to smartphones and the fact they lack a proper keyboard for longer form content and interactions. Plus a few social media apps have replaced .com websites. Hope to see a reversal of it as this is not using the internet to its true potential. People should put the phone down and get back online via a laptop or desktop machine instead!

Here are my thoughts https://www.eoshd.com/news/oppenheimer-review-70mm-imax-screening/

I had a tip off by a man who should know, that a certain Leica SL3 is coming in March next year, which will be a huge updated based on Panasonic's latest tech, which means we should see an S2H or S1H II whatever it will be called before then, perhaps even this year. The S1 and S1R will get an update too, so not long to wait for some excitement in Panasonic land. By the way I just noticed that WEX in the UK have an S1H for £1399, which is simply ridiculous. This was a 4 grand camera when it came out and is Netflix standard!! It is amazing how the market punishes Panasonic for such a high quality piece of kit. In fact I felt sorry for it and bought it. Autofocus be damned. The S2H is sure to have PDAF but will it be an 8K overkill monster and lose some of the low light creaminess that the S1H is well known for? That is the question.